NARCONON STRONGLY OPPOSES DRUGGING PREGNANT WOMEN

A recent study of opioid addicted women was disclosed to Narconon sources. Although findings showed buprenorphine reducing neonatal abstinence symptoms as opposed to methadone treatment, both options are extremely dangerous and potentially fatal to newborn babies. The majority of those using both methadone and buprenorphine, more often than not, are still abusing street drugs like heroin or illegally obtained prescription narcotics.

The combination of opioid blockers or antagonists and narcotics greatly increases the chance of overdose. As far as the effect on newborn babies, they are now subject to withdrawing from yet another drug on top of the already present street drugs.  Babies must suffer the incredibly painful withdrawal symptoms and are far more likely to have birth defects, low birth weight and learning disorders.  Many hospitals do not urine screen for buprenorphine as it is a newer drug causing addicted women to fly below the radar of Child Protective Services. Researchers additionally do not have data on long term side effects for women or babies as the drug has been on the market for just under a decade.

“As part of an international study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), researchers led by Hendrée Jones, Ph.D., director of the Center for Addiction and Pregnancy at Johns Hopkins University, randomized 131 opioid-dependent pregnant women from eight multi-country sites to either methadone or buprenorphine, and followed them until one month after giving birth.

Although methadone is the current recommended treatment for opioid dependence during pregnancy, the researchers found buprenorphine to be significantly better at reducing symptoms of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) — a cluster of symptoms associated with opioid withdrawal — among the newborns, reducing postnatal NAS treatment from 10 days to four.

Further, methadone showed no superiority to buprenorphine in terms of health outcomes or decreasing maternal and infant adverse events.”

http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2010/buprenorphine-better-for.html

Narconon believes the money spent on studies of this type could be better allocated to drug prevention and treatment for pregnant women. If protecting newborns is the true motivation the government should not support or tolerate programs that allow women to introduce dangerous drugs into their children’s bodies.

Prevention, Education and Treatment, like the Narconon Drug Rehab, are the solution for women and children, not more drugs.